So that Vietnamese athletics does not 'go backwards'

Vietnamese track and field athletes have a busy 2023, participating in many major playgrounds such as the SEA Games and ASIAD, before returning to compete in the national championship, which just ended last November.

Despite high expectations, the Vietnamese athletics team did not achieve as much success as expected. At SEA Games 32, the entire team won 12 gold medals, surpassed by Thailand after 3 consecutive periods dominating the Southeast Asian track.

At ASIAD 19, Vietnamese athletics did not achieve the goal of having a medal. Nguyen Thi Oanh failed at both participating distances. On the women's 1.500 m run, the Bac Giang runner only ranked 7th with nearly 8 seconds less than ASIAD 18.

VUONG ANH

In the women's 3.000 m obstacle course, the 32nd SEA Games champion achieved her best parameters of the year, but still far behind the bronze medal she achieved at ASIAD 18. That is not to mention the competition, Nguyen Thi Oanh has not been able to surpass herself.

ASIAD 18 champion Bui Thi Thu Thao also failed to successfully defend her throne, finishing 8th overall at ASIAD 19. Meanwhile, the 4×400 m relay team could not reproduce its resounding success at the ASIAD 4. Asian tournament, due to only finishing 19th at ASIAD XNUMX.

The fact that athletes are not competing successfully in many arenas brings worry to Vietnamese athletics. A series of pillars such as Nguyen Thi Huyen (400 m, 400 m hurdles), Bui Thi Thu Thao (long jump), Nguyen Van Lai (5.000 m, 10.000 m) are no longer playing for the team, in the context of a new generation of athletes. There are very few notable faces such as Tran Thi Nhi Yen (short distance) and Le Thi Tuyet (long distance), re-establishing previous achievements is difficult, not to mention reaching further in the arenas. big, the immediate future is the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Currently, Vietnamese athletics does not have any faces that are sure to qualify for the Olympics next year. Most likely, we have to rely on special tickets, as was the case with Quach Thi Lan at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics 2 years ago (Quach Thi Lan then reached the semi-finals).

However, according to experts, the new Olympic standards for athletics are always much higher than regional and continental tournaments. Therefore, Vietnamese athletics needs to look at reality to set appropriate goals for the future.

“Hot issues such as training and investment for team and youth athletes, hiring foreign experts, focusing on investment and training for key athletes will be discussed and found solutions. The best solution in the current context of Vietnamese athletics", Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, General Secretary of the Vietnam Athletics Federation shared.

Vietnamese athletics needs to find a new, immediate direction in the work of discovering, recruiting, training athletes, selecting talents for key investments, and at the same time calculating the training stage and choosing suitable performance points. for athletes, avoiding cases where competition is spread out and overloaded, leading to unreliable results.